9318 réponses à ce sujet

[Stelae]

lol, I had forgotten about the undies shot of femhawke so I pulled out my guide to look.  I'm glad the only time an actual in-game shot of femHawke was appropriate was to show off her underwear.

 

"If you decide to remove your character's armor as well, a fetching set of underwear protects their modesty-- but little else, as there is no default armor.  And yes, the effect persists for engine cut scenes."

 

Sorry if the picture doesn't work, I'm bad at forums.

 

Edit:  Also, I imagine Aveline, Bethany and Leandra are all wondering why Hawke is running around in gloves and panties.

Time for a new Suggestion thread, I think.  "Can we please see LESS of the Lady inquisitor, while we are seeing more of her?" 

 

Jeebus H Tapdancing Cripes, what is WRONG with these people?

[Lady Nuggins]

Admittedly, it's been a while since I looked at my copy of the official guide, so I forgot there were a couple minor shots of Lady Hawke.  I remembered it being nearly void of her, because my friend recently wanted to look up references for her Lady Hawke cosplay and found it useless.

 

That's actually worse than if there had been no Lady Hawke at all.  

 

What I was trying to get at with the example of the guide book was, even if the higher ups are terrified that showing anything other than a dudebro on the cover will scare potential male gamers away, there was no reason not to feature her inside the book.  Fully clothed, that is.

[Monica21]

lol, I had forgotten about the undies shot of femhawke so I pulled out my guide to look.  I'm glad the only time an actual in-game shot of femHawke was appropriate was to show off her underwear.

 

"If you decide to remove your character's armor as well, a fetching set of underwear protects their modesty-- but little else, as there is no default armor.  And yes, the effect persists for engine cut scenes."

 

Sorry if the picture doesn't work, I'm bad at forums.

 

Edit:  Also, I imagine Aveline, Bethany and Leandra are all wondering why Hawke is running around in gloves and panties.

Okay, point taken. Eeesh.

[Darth Krytie]

Yeah, I have the collector's edition guide and I just went through it. There are only five images of Lady Hawke, that one included. One on the tactics page--an artistic headshot, that one, one you can barely see in a picture of a darkspawn--she's killing it--in the bestiary, one in the section that shows all the characters, and another in the special section at the end.

 

That's not much at all given how much dudeHawke is all over the place. They could have at least used LadyHawke in the screen shots of gameplay footage.

[Mes]

Yeeeeeeeesh. Whose idea was that guide, anyway??

[Aimi]

How about SWTOR?  You can be a Jedi, but not a Skywalker OR a Kenobi.  Or an Imperial who isn't a moustache-twirling villain.

 

While I agree that a significant amount of customization and player choice in the sort of character one plays in an RPG is desirable, I would like to address this misconception about The Old Republic.

 

Almost all Imperial content in SWTOR requires some form of approval for the Sith Empire itself, which happens to be an institution of almost unparalleled evil. The only opportunities to disapprove of or directly sabotage the Empire come in some of the class quests, which in turn make up a small portion of the total amount of content in the game.

 

So the same Agent who eventually pledges to be a mole for Republic SIS will also, through the course of the game, keep fighting for the Empire and, if all content in the game is completed, will commit enough war crimes to make the actual Nazis blush.

 

To be fair, if they incorporated more choices, the game would probably still be in development. But this notion of non-evil Imperials is false. People who roleplay 'nice' Imps or who write fanfiction about them end up having to erase or alter most of the game's storyline.

[Stelae]

 

While I agree that a significant amount of customization and player choice in the sort of character one plays in an RPG is desirable, I would like to address this misconception about The Old Republic.

 

Almost all Imperial content in SWTOR requires some form of approval for the Sith Empire itself, which happens to be an institution of almost unparalleled evil. The only opportunities to disapprove of or directly sabotage the Empire come in some of the class quests, which in turn make up a small portion of the total amount of content in the game.

 

So the same Agent who eventually pledges to be a mole for Republic SIS will also, through the course of the game, keep fighting for the Empire and, if all content in the game is completed, will commit enough war crimes to make the actual Nazis blush.

 

To be fair, if they incorporated more choices, the game would probably still be in development. But this notion of non-evil Imperials is false. People who roleplay 'nice' Imps or who write fanfiction about them end up having to erase or alter most of the game's storyline.

 

No one wakes up in the morning and says "hmmm ... what evil can I work today ... "* 

 

But in SWTOR, there's a war on, and Republic or Empire, you end up with a hellaciously high body count and you do some very questionable things.  The Empire is under threat from two forces, if you ask me; the Republic who want to wipe it out, and the Sith, who are destroying it from within with all their infighting.  My Agent wants to protect the innocent citizens of the Empire from the Sith as much as from the Republic, and takes every possible opportunity to preserve life.  Is she perfect?  Does she always succeed, or even live up to her own high expectations? No - she's a soldier in a war, just as my Smuggler is.  Only my Smuggler isn't a patriot, she's a profiteer.  Whether they are heroes or villains depends on who's writing the story; the people who fire-bombed Dresden got medals, after all.  But you can be on the wrong side of history without being an evil person; that's part of the tragedy of war.

 

*actually, my Sorcerer does; she's a complete psycho ...

[The Hierophant]

I highly doubt that marketing ONLY to the young straight white male is profitable. If one trailer has a generic dudebro, and another has other options will the second trailer make the dudebro fan forget the first trailer and reject the game? "WHAT?! You can play as a black guy? You can play as a WOMAN?! What the hell is this crap? I'm not playing anything that lets me choose!" BioWare games are practically tailor made for women. They're character driven, story focused, rich in customization and roleplay, and even have romances. I think publishers are stuck in the past. They refuse to move beyond the early 90's where video games were the domain of young boys when that really isn't how our culture is anymore.

Allan Schumacher said in this very thread "I went to my first ever PAX this year, though, and it's painfully clear how appealing our games seem to be for women given the large amount of women that came to talk. I didn't really take polls on the distribution, but in terms of the people that were interested in talking games with me was probably about 90% women." If there are that many women that somehow found their way around the misleading marketing and discovered the games like I did on accident when my male cousin coerced me into playing DA:O even though the Sacred Ashes trailer (which was the only one I'd seen) made it look like a shallow, generic dudebro hack-n-slash, then how many more out there would buy it if only they knew? This is a game for them. This is a game they would love.

I think it's less about being stuck in the past but marketing targeting the largest consumer base of the console market. The successes of Skyrim and GTA V kind of muddles equal representation as most publishers are success chasers or rarely take risks (EA). Skyrim solely featured a white male in marketing, while GTA V featured two whites and a black male. No females in sight. Considering GTA V's record breaking sales i don't expect there to be drastic changes in regards to the choice of a MC's gender in game creation/marketing, unless there's a concentrated effort to increase the number of female console gamers.

Think of the hair product market, Pantene Pro V or Wen to be specific. Women are majorly featured in it's commercials or magazine ads despite products being gender neutral and men purchasing the products too, due to women making up a larger percentage consumers.

Mind you i agree to an extent with your sentiment and would like to see EA's marketing follow the DA team's philosophy of inclusiveness, but my post is directed towards the console game market as a whole. Sorry for the pessimism though.

[Paul E Dangerously]

This is not really about the devs, though.  This is about the marketing materials.  I know how the writers and artists feel about inclusion of women, but I also know that they don't necessarily have any control over how the marketing team chooses to represent the game. 

 

I am not really "choosing" to be offended, here.  When every single promotional image is of the male version of the protagonist, not even acknowledging that female is an option, then I cannot help but feel ignored by a company that places so much emphasis on inclusion.  If it were just the game guide, that would not be a big deal.  The game guide is an example of the wider lack of any female representation in the promotional material.

 

The funny thing about this is that one developer in particular, Bethesda - has a signature game involving ten playable races each with two genders, and I don't think I've ever heard anyone complain about this with their marketing.

[Brass_Buckles]

The funny thing about this is that one developer in particular, Bethesda - has a signature game involving ten playable races each with two genders, and I don't think I've ever heard anyone complain about this with their marketing.

 

When they get a group of devs who actually seem as willing to listen as Bioware appears to be, then more people might speak up.  Personally I likely would have passed Skyrim by, since I'd never played an Elder Scrolls game when it came out, except I heard through the grapevine that I could be female and that it was a great game.  So I bought it on sale... but only after buying Oblivion on sale and trying it out first.  Yes, marketing with female characters would have helped in that case, because I'd have been quicker to buy the game if I had known I could play a female.  Might have even ordered the collector's edition, so they'd have gotten more of my money.

[ElitePinecone]

Time for a new Suggestion thread, I think.  "Can we please see LESS of the Lady inquisitor, while we are seeing more of her?" 

 

Jeebus H Tapdancing Cripes, what is WRONG with these people?

 

Yeah, when one of the only shots of Lady Hawke in the official game guide is her wearing underwear and nothing else... yikes. 

 

It's probably not Bioware's fault directly, if another company does the guides, but it does speak to the position female protagonists occupy in the wider marketing and promotional space. 

 

I think the assumption that their protagonists are male by default is what irks me the most, really. Bioware have this double standard where there's no canon character from a narrative point of view, but they seem fine with assuming a default male Shepard/Hawke for every time the game is mentioned externally (and many times internally, by the devs themselves). It gets into the media discourse about the game, the marketing, and the way in which fans refer to the characters - and that *does* marginalise the female protagonists.

[Legenlorn]

Ever played Lord of the Rings online?  It might surprise you to know that even though it's based on a book with overwhelmingly male characters, you don't actually have to play Frodo.  Or Aragorn.  Or Legolas.  Or Eowyn, for that matter. How about SWTOR?  You can be a Jedi, but not a Skywalker OR a Kenobi.  Or an Imperial who isn't a moustache-twirling villain.  Plenty of AAA material is based on books and movies without shoehorning you into playing a particular character.  If the Witcher is set in a good, well-built world,and by all accounts it is, then there are cool stories that can be told that don't require you to be Geralt, and the experience might well be richer and more compelling for it. 

 

Geralt is a safe, oft-repeated set of cliches made to cater to a sector of the market that is supersaturated.  He'll alienate as many people as he satisfies (this is, of course, a problem with any fixed protagonist; I'm sure there are people out there who have issues with Lara Croft, or Jade, or whoever).  All the developers have to do is say "due to exciting new advances in Witcher creating technology, we now know how to make women Witchers too" -- it can still be risky, like becoming a Warden was -- and lo and behold, a whole new set of perspectives on the world open up.  You can still be Geralt if you like, but you aren't bound to be.

It might surprise you but playing a few set characters in an online game made for a huge number of people would be really not that fun. So if there are plenty of AAA titles based on books and stuff, mind giving examples of those that are not MMOs? If they make a witcher based MMO I am sure you would get the opportunity to play as a Women (unfinished witcher or a sorcerer or anything else that makes sense). Not sure if the devs can decide on a world that has not been created by them but time will tell. And still Skyrim and GTA did show that games can still be very successful without showing women. The female part of the gamers, however small or big it is, still bought the games.

[Stelae]

It might surprise you but playing a few set characters in an online game made for a huge number of people would be really not that fun. So if there are plenty of AAA titles based on books and stuff, mind giving examples of those that are not MMOs? If they make a witcher based MMO I am sure you would get the opportunity to play as a Women (unfinished witcher or a sorcerer or anything else that makes sense). Not sure if the devs can decide on a world that has not been created by them but time will tell. And still Skyrim and GTA did show that games can still be very successful without showing women. The female part of the gamers, however small or big it is, still bought the games.

Oh, for pete's sake.  KOTOR and it's sequel, just for starters.  Do your own research.  And stop moving the goalposts; suddenly MMOs don't count because Reasons?  Get over yourself. 

[Elanor]

I'm most interested in Lady Inquistor voice. I hope we'll hear her soon.

[First Degree Mordor]

Alright, I've been following discussions such as these closely for months, but have never jumped in with my own thoughts. This morning, I was lurking in the Twitter thread, and this topic lead to a very heated discussion. Many of the replies left me clenching my jaw in irritation and balling my fists in outrage. While some might say it's ridiculous for me to be bothered so much by this, it isn't even really the fact that females haven't been getting as much representation in the Dragon Age games (or the gaming industry in general) as men. For me it's an unwelcome reminder of everything I have to deal with as a woman every day. Maybe that's being a bit dramatic, I don't know. But how can anyone deny that women come second in most game developers minds? I've seen people posting things on this subject with varied opinions. I'd like to address some of those opinions right now.

 

A popular (more or less) one I've seen is that it's not Bioware's obligation to make a female trailer, or showcase the female PC more. While that's technically true, I feel that it is their obligation to make their whole consumer base feel properly included. That means more representation for a female PC. And, while it's easy enough for a man to say "if that's what you're going to whine about, that says a whole lot more about you than it does (insert gaming company name here)," men have had plenty of representation in the video game industry. In no way are they being thought of second, the way that women are pretty much an afterthought.

 

I've also seen some people say that they'd rather play as a female protagonist, would buy a game simply for the fact that there is a female PC. Being a woman, it's much easier for me to relate to a female PC, which is why if there is the option, I will always play a woman. For example, I bought The Witcher 2 a few months ago, but couldn't get into it because Geralt is just a character that I cannot relate to (although, he seems universally unrelateable, so that might be a flimsy example). A comment someone made in another forum to this point really pissed me off, and is the reason I decided to post in this thread. Here it is: "I have a hard time respecting someone who relies on the main protagonist's sex as a deciding factor." As I said, that's easy for a man to say, as there are only a handful of video games without the option to play as a male protagonist, and at least half of that small handful of games are tailored towards a male audience.

 

Another thing people have said (and this is an excuse for uneven representation) is that women are "new to video games." This statement is wrong. Women have been playing video games as long as men, it's just that they're coming out of the woodwork more and more because it is not as frowned upon as it used to be. This is relevant for men as well. Male gamers were as much of an oddity as female gamers. 

 

I am kind of rambling here, but my point is that women have not been treated as equals in the gaming industry. While this is obvious, I don't think it will hurt for it to be said once more. Why is it that big of a deal for better representation for women in the Dragon Age universe? We spend just as much money on the games as the men. 

 

And I swear to the Maker, the Creators, and the Old Gods, if I see one more man complain about how they are misrepresented, oppressed, or face sexism, I will explode.  

[Mes]

And I swear to the Maker, the Creators, and the Old Gods, if I see one more man complain about how they are misrepresented, oppressed, or face sexism, I will explode.  

 

My favorite is when men start getting defensive along the lines of "Well I was born white and with a penis so is everything my fault now???"  Shhhhh, child. 

[First Degree Mordor]

My favorite is when men start getting defensive along the lines of "Well I was born white and with a penis so is everything my fault now???"  Shhhhh, child. 

 

It's like, well I wasn't accusing you of anything... UNTIL NOW. 

[WildOrchid]

 

And I swear to the Maker, the Creators, and the Old Gods, if I see one more man complain about how they are misrepresented, oppressed, or face sexism, I will explode.  

 

Bless those dudebros though, such comic relief.

[First Degree Mordor]

Bless those dudebros though, such comic relief.

 

Haha, as funny as it is that they think that's relevant, it really does grind my gears. How dare they whine that they're being "objectified." Male sexism and female sexism are different. With male sexism, all that really comes from that is wounded pride. Female sexism, comes with wounded pride, a lower pay grade, harassment, and a slew of other things.

 

Okay, that is way off topic, so I'm just going to stop here. This is really the one debate that will make me tear my hair out in frustration in response to the ignorance of the responses it will get. 

[Monica21]

Another thing people have said (and this is an excuse for uneven representation) is that women are "new to video games." This statement is wrong. Women have been playing video games as long as men, it's just that they're coming out of the woodwork more and more because it is not as frowned upon as it used to be. This is relevant for men as well. Male gamers were as much of an oddity as female gamers. 

Okay, I know you posted a lot and it was all really good, but this got to me. I was playing Pong and Berserk when I was 5 and 6. I was the girl at the arcade in grade school. That's a crap argument and whoever said that either never bothered to look around when he was at the arcade (or was never at an arcade and considers his entire "gaming" experience to be various iterations of Nintendo and Playstation) or he's willfully ignorant. Neither of those options are good.

[9TailsFox]

Haha, as funny as it is that they think that's relevant, it really does grind my gears. How dare they whine that they're being "objectified." Male sexism and female sexism are different. With male sexism, all that really comes from that is wounded pride. Female sexism, comes with wounded pride, a lower pay grade, harassment, and a slew of other things.

 

Okay, that is way off topic, so I'm just going to stop here. This is really the one debate that will make me tear my hair out in frustration in response to the ignorance of the responses it will get. 

Did you even read what you write. And I am tired of "I am female what means I can't be sexist". You act like all men born with t-shirt and women directly into slavery.

And this is probably your role models.

[First Degree Mordor]

Did you even read what you write. And I am tired of "I am female what means I can't be sexist". You act like all men born with t-shirt and women directly into slavery.

 

You are clearly the only one who didn't read my post. In no way was it even implied that 1. I condone sexism and 2. I think all men are born with t-shirts (whatever that means) and women are born in to slavery.

 

I said that men have absolutely no right whatsoever to complain that they face sexism, as they don't face the same extremes as women. Sure, it exists. But that doesn't mean it's relevant to a conversation about the sexism women have to endure every day. And frankly, no one gives a damn.

 

As for the second part, I'm not sure what point you were trying to make, but I think you're being a bit dramatic.

[Gregolian]

I almost would prefer if BioWare limited showing the Inquisitor at all and focus more on the companions and such in trailers.

 

But that's just me.

[9TailsFox]

You are clearly the only one who didn't read my post. In no way was it even implied that 1. I condone sexism and 2. I think all men are born with t-shirts (whatever that means) and women are born in to slavery.

 

I said that men have absolutely no right whatsoever to complain that they face sexism, as they don't face the same extremes as women. Sure, it exists. But that doesn't mean it's relevant to a conversation about the sexism women have to endure every day. And frankly, no one gives a damn.

 

As for the second part, I'm not sure what point you were trying to make, but I think you're being a bit dramatic.

 

Haha, as funny as it is that they think that's relevant, it really does grind my gears. How dare they whine that they're being "objectified." Male sexism and female sexism are different. 

This is your words. Man can't dare to speak. Penis get cut how dare he find justices? This is obviously his fault. Lets make fun on TV. And sexism different. Why because women are better then man.  And I am being dramatic.

P.S born with t-shirts means your lucky/life is perfect for you.

[syllogi]

I almost would prefer if BioWare limited showing the Inquisitor at all and focus more on the companions and such in trailers.

 

But that's just me.

 

There are multiple problems with this approach, however, starting with the fact that not every companion is going to be representative of every race and sex, so we run the risk of not getting to see female qunari in game, for instance, if there are no female qunari companions, and they take the suggestion of not showing any Inquisitors at all in marketing.

 

Another problem is that some of us really enjoy being able to see animations, hairstyles, makeup and tattoo options, etc., and there's no guarantee that companions will represent any of what we get in the character creator, since there's a chance that many of them will have unique models, with characteristics unavailable to the player character.  If we don't get to see the player character's potential model before the game comes out, we're unable to offer feedback, or at least offer constructive criticism for the future, in a timely manner.

 

Also, it seems a bit suspect that people are now in favor of not seeing the potential player character at all, when players are asking to see more of the female version.  I have never heard this asked for when past DA or ME games were being marketed primarily with the male "default" version of the PC.  Why is it a great idea to erase the player character from marketing now, when it was not something ever brought up back then?